On behalf of my Eastern Turkistani countrymen, I am honored at this opportunity to write to you, the President of the United States. I do so at a time of great sadness for my people, at a time of increasing atrocities committed by the Han Chinese on innocent Uyghurs in our homeland, Eastern Turkistan.

My country is known to Chinese as Xinjiang province. That fact alone explains much of this letter's purpose. Certain assumptions come from calling this region “Xinjiang.” The most basic is that it is part of China. And from that flow the assumptions that its natives speak Chinese, that they look like East Asians, that they come out of a Confucian tradition, and so on.

All of these assumptions are wrong. As the name “Eastern Turkistan” implies, this vast region has for centuries been the land of the Eastern Turks, who are Moslem by faith, Caucasian by race, and whose native language is not remotely related to Chinese.

Eastern Turkistan, which had remained an independent state for many centuries, was invaded and conquered by the Qing Empire in 1759. During the years which followed, the native people rebelled on numerous occasions against their distant rulers. In 1864, the Turkic people successfully chased the Manchus from their motherland. Their independent state, which for most of two decades, established diplomatic relations with the Ottoman Empire, Russia, and Great Britain.

The Manchu Empire again gained control of Eastern Turkistan in the early 1880s, declaring on November 18, 1884, that Eastern Turkistan was China's nineteenth province. It was at this time that the imperial viceroy, Tso Tsung-t'ang, officially gave the land its Chinese name: “Sinkiang,” spelled today as Xinjiang. This new name means “the new territory” or “the new dominion” in Chinese.

The struggle of the Eastern Turkistani people for control of their land has continued in the 20th century. The 1933 Qumul Rebellion led to the creation of an Eastern Turkistan Islamic Republic. A second major uprising in 1944 was also briefly successful, leading to the creation of Eastern Turkistan -- which maintained its independence until 1949 when Soviet and Chinese forces combined to crush it. Since this most recent takeover, Beijing has strengthened its occupation of my homeland.

Mr. President, Eastern Turkistan has become a dungeon for its people. China violates human rights without hesitation -- arresting, torturing and killing the innocent. More than a half million Turkistanis who have bravely challenged Chinese authority have been executed. More than 300,000 have fled to neighboring countries. Hundreds of thousands have been sent to labor camps. The control of Turkistani population is enforced ruthlessly: many, many thousands of families have suffered from forced sterilizations, forced abortions, and economic penalties.

Beijing's policy toward my country has moved beyond control toward complete assimilation. In recent years China has moved millions of Han into Eastern Turkistan, seeking to dilute the true native populations. Those who arrive from China are given the best jobs and the best pay and the best housing -- all at the expense of the millions of Turkistanis. Beijing has attacked Turkistani culture including our religion. Turkistanis are forced to speak, read and write Chinese, and to dress, eat, sing, dance, and behave as if they are Chinese. Beijing claims to respect “its” minorities, but we who have lived under their rule know that their real policy is one of genocide. Their goal is clear: one day there must be only Chinese in Xinjiang.

China's lack of respect for the people of my country has been equaled by its disregard for the very land of Eastern Turkistan. We have become a dumping ground for China's environmental waste. Lop Nor, a region known well by your government, is far more than a research center; it has become a profoundly toxic site of nuclear waste. We will never know how many lives have been prematurely ended by nuclear radiation, how many cancers have been spawned, how many children have been born with deformities. The count of my own people is that there have been 200,000 deaths from radiation alone.

As your nation's diplomats and journalists will tell you, Beijing does not want the world to know of its treatment of the Turkistani people. They prefer to carry on their repression out of site of the world. Even when natural disaster strikes, China seeks to withhold the information, fearing that aid workers will convey to Americans and others the ongoing horrors of China's occupation.

Eastern Turkistanis seek to determine their own future. Distinct in every way as a people, they seek the right to select their leaders and control their fate as do other nations around the world. And, we turn to the United States as the most important of those nations.

The people of Eastern Turkistan turn to the United States as so many others seeking freedom and self determination have done over the years. We ask that your nation raise its voice on behalf of the millions of Turkistanis whose voices are kept silent. We ask that you make clear to Beijing that human rights -- including the human rights of Turkistanis -- matter to the U.S.

We ask that the United States press the United Nations to itself investigate the just cause of the Eastern Turkistani people, working directly with their true representatives, not the puppets appointed by Beijing.

We ask the United States to continue its pressure that China truly end its nuclear tests, and end its use of our region as a dumping ground for nuclear waste.

We ask that the United States seek the right to visit the prisons and labor camps scattered throughout my homeland. Your nation already has laws preventing the import of goods made by prison labor; much of that labor is to be found in my homeland.

The Eastern Turkistani people ask only to control their own fate. We seek to join the international community of nations in openness and peace. We seek to share our plentiful natural resources with the peoples of the world: they must not be seen as the private preserve of Beijing.

We turn to you, President Clinton, as the leader of a great nation, hoping that you will recognize the just cause of millions of Eastern Turkistanis. We turn to you for compassion and leadership to put an end to the misery of so many innocent people.

We look forward to your favorable reply and ask that God grant you continued strength and wisdom to carry on your most important work.